


lost (and found) in lines of code

by AlexiaBlackbriar13



Series: lexi's quarantine and chill fics [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, CIA Agent Oliver Queen, Discussion of Illegal Human Experimentation, Discussion of Nazis and Nazi Behavior, Electrokinesis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, Evil Government Agencies, F/M, Forbidden Love, Hatred, Heavy Angst, Heavy arguing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Murder, On the Run, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Superpowers, Technopathy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vigilante Felicity Smoak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23878963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13
Summary: CIA special agent Oliver Queen is hunting down vigilante electrokinetic and technopathic Felicity Smoak, for killing Tommy, his best friend and fellow agent, after their one-night-stand.Little does Oliver know that their single night together before everything fell to shit has left her pregnant - and Felicity is determined to keep the baby a secret from him.Now, though, they're trapped in an underground bunker and nothing else to do but finally talk.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: lexi's quarantine and chill fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672939
Comments: 37
Kudos: 334
Collections: Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive 2020





	lost (and found) in lines of code

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [we're all ones and zeros beneath our skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15550638) by [AlexiaBlackbriar13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13). 



> hey guys, here we are once again, because i just could NOT resist dipping my toes back into this verse
> 
> so those of you who have come from twitter know what this fic is, but those who do not know
> 
> this is an **ALTERNATE TIMELINE AU FIC of my original fic['we're all ones and zeroes beneath our skin', which can be found here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15550638)** that means that _THIS fic you are reading now diverges after a certain plot point within ones and zeroes, which is now noted in the original fic within the text itself, in bold._
> 
>  **you DO NOT need to read ones and zeroes to enjoy this fic** , however, as the events that occur in the original fic are summarised in a couple of paragraphs at the beginning to catch you up to speed
> 
> thank you to the incredible cerys, abby, sam, calli and shel who have all helped me or encouraged me at some point when it comes to this fic. i really love and appreciate you guys, you're the best xx
> 
> hope you guys enjoy!

Felicity’s certain this has to be a nightmare. An incredibly vivid, disturbing nightmare. Because she’s had night terrors like this before. Being trapped in a collapsing, abandoned Cold War bunker with no company other than the CIA agent who is trying to kill her because of her technopathic and electrokinetic powers, but she’s fallen in love with - and is secretly carrying his baby - is her idea of a doomsday scenario.

It’s a long story.

Four years ago, an object of extraterrestrial origin crashed to Earth, and a shockwave of dark matter was sent out from the object upon collision. The dark matter affected certain people within the Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix triangle, around two hundred of them in total… and they ended up developing abilities. Enhanced strength, stamina, and senses were run of the mill powers, but they also developed specialized abilities. The US government entirely covered up the alien object crash and civilians developing powers, who they called Deviants.

Felicity is one of them. She now sees the world in a completely different way than most.

While everybody else sees the Universe as light, darkness and colors, life and death, and the nothingness that’s in between, the electrokinetic now has the ability to view it as something different… from another perspective. She sees data: endless, ever-changing, vibrant streams of data. She didn’t know where it came from initially. She had no idea how exactly she could see it. But it was there. Pulsating, shifting, almost _alive_ … Data analyzing every single thing in existence. Hanging in the air as chains of words and strings of zeros and ones for technology.

Internet chat rooms allowed Felicity to meet others like her, and soon, she had a merry band of Deviant friends by her side. Now, they’re all on the run together from the government, functioning as vigilantes essentially as they attack government scientific facilities where Deviant children are being captured, tortured, and experimented on, to rescue them. For years, that’s been how they’ve lived - hunted but free, learning how to use their powers to do good in the world and save the abused children the CIA are turning into lab rats.

Then, Oliver Queen, a top-level CIA agent with a high affinity for weapons and strategy who had been placed on an operation to bring her in, dropped into Felicity’s life. Or, more accurately, followed her into a burning building but ended up not trying to shoot her, despite his orders. He honestly intrigued her. His eyes, which were beautifully blue, were sharp and calculating and cold but also… curious. Confused. Oliver Queen did not understand precisely what he was getting into, and he knew it.

Felicity saw an opportunity. The next time Oliver and his fellow agents tried to take Felicity and her team down, she saved him and told him to look into the scientific facilities; she was sure at that point that he had no idea what was going on with the kids, and he seemed like a man with strong morals who would protest against that sort of thing, so it was a chance to sway him to their side - to get an inside man at the CIA. And it worked. Oliver started helping them, giving them warnings so they could cover their tracks or escape dangerous situations before the government had the chance to confront them. He and Felicity communicated via burner phones and he actually fed them useful information. Oliver _cared_ about them. He cared about Felicity. He expressed concern for her, always glancing her up and down worriedly with those blue eyes and looking blessedly relieved when he saw that she was alright.

And without even realizing it, Felicity fell in love with him. And it was utterly terrifying.

Felicity knew that there was a spark between them even before he had to go and take a bullet for her. She was achingly mad at him for that. The guilt was overwhelming, drowning her like a tidal wave, and it was then that she realized that there couldn’t be anything between them. They couldn’t be in a real relationship, when their lives were so dangerous and they were meant to be enemies.

One night in Boston, Massachusetts, they spent the night together in a motel room. They kissed, and made love, and Felicity felt like she climbed to the top of Everest. Then she was forced to jump off it, without a parachute. She had to protect her own heart, and protect Oliver’s. She told him it was meaningless. An accident. Just a one night stand. Oliver looked devastated. Felicity felt like she was tearing herself apart. She lashed out at him when he tried to argue, and he lashed back. Felicity was left silently sobbing as Oliver stormed off.

Everything went to shit after that. Felicity killed one of Oliver’s teammates. He was pointing a gun at her and the abused little girl she just rescued from a government lab, and was about to shoot her. Felicity saw the glint of fear and determination in Tommy Merlyn’s eyes as he squeezed the trigger. Something deep and primal and instinctual enveloped her body, screaming at her to _PROTECT_ , and in a second flat, she stopped every single electrical signal in his body. She killed Tommy instantly. She was horrified at herself. She knew it would have been painless, but she murdered somebody. Oliver’s teammate. Oliver’s _best friend_.

The fight they had after was the end of everything for Felicity. She wanted to die. She wanted to curl up into a ball and wither away.

 _“You’re a monster!”_ he screamed at her. “You killed my best friend! You - you kissed me and had sex with me and then basically told me I was nothing to you! And the worst part of all of this is that I love you!”

She’d been shell-shocked. Oliver had never admitted his love for her before and he had never, ever been this angry with her. Felicity was frightened by how his entire body was shakily with rage, by the feral gleam in his eyes. _“O-Oliver -”_

 _“I love the woman that I’m meant to be hunting down and capturing because she’s a fucking terrorist and attacking government facilities! I love the woman who called me dramatic for possibly having feelings for her! I love the woman who killed my best friend!”_ he yelled. _“Do you see how messed up that is?!”_

She fled, too panicked and frightened to consider sticking around. The next day, Oliver saved her from being captured by his other teammate Adrian Chase - who in all honesty was a bit of a psychopath. He watched her run away with dark eyes and a frigid expression. Seeing him so emotionless was unnerving.

 _“If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you myself,”_ Oliver told her flatly. _“I swear, Felicity, I’ll going to make you pay for murdering my best friend. I don’t care that I used to love you. I’ll make you regret the day you ever met me. I’ll kill you.”_

Eight weeks later, Felicity discovered she was three months pregnant with his baby. It was, quite possibly, one of the worst days of her life.

She was suffering from awful morning sickness and headaches when Lyla suggested she take a pregnancy test. Lyla was able to use her teleport powers to help Felicity steal ten different tests from a Walmart close to the abandoned school they were currently using as a field base. She spent hours and hours sitting on the dirty, cracked bathroom floor, crying and feeling like her entire life was ruined, when all ten came back positive. Never in her life had she experienced as much dismay in a single moment. That condom from his jacket they used must have been expired, faulty or broken. She knew she could never tell Oliver. He was so, so angry at her, hunting Felicity down like an animal. He would probably accuse the baby of being a monster too and force her to have an abortion - or straight-up kill them both.

Despite her devastation that she was pregnant with her enemy’s child, Felicity was also a little bit excited, and knew she would do whatever it took to protect her future son or daughter. Even if that meant protecting them from their own father. Diggle and the others on her team insisted she take a step back from field missions and focus on the Deviant community they’ve been building at Wollaston Lake in Canada. Felicity agreed, on the condition that they still use her when they were desperate. She was pregnant, not an invalid, after all.

That’s how she’s ended up in her situation now, two months after that, and five months pregnant. Trapped in a bunker with Oliver.

She and the team were in New Orleans following a lead about a genetics lab being used to do DNA experiments on kidnapped Deviant children, when they were ambushed by Oliver and the CIA. Felicity ordered Dinah and Diggle to create a distraction so that she and Roy could escape with the children to the extraction point they set up in an abandoned old bunker with Lyla so she could teleport them out.

Oliver must have known that Dinah and Diggle were the distraction, because while his teammates attempted to fight them, he chased straight after Felicity, Roy and the kids. Roy was aiding Lyla in teleporting the last of the kids to safety when Oliver appeared in a flurry of rage, firing his handgun wildly at them. Roy immediately tried to get Felicity to cover but got a bullet in his leg. The bunker shook with a sudden explosion as Lyla grabbed at them both to teleport them away - and Felicity was knocked to the ground by a flying piece of debris, out of Lyla’s grasp. They had no choice but to teleport away without her.

Leaving her behind with the CIA agent who’s baby she’s pregnant with, who’s probably going to put a bullet in her too the moment he regains consciousness.

Felicity stirs groggily on the floor, her entire body fizzing and feeling like it’s on fire as her adrenalin interacts with the electricity she’s stored in her cells. She’s curled up on the ground, jagged pieces of the crumbling ceiling littered around her. Her head pounding, Felicity immediately lowers her hands to check on her baby bump. It’s small, considering she’s five months, which is good because it makes it easier to shield and hide from view. She sighs in relief when she realizes that her tumble didn’t result in any impact or possible injury.

“Fuck,” she mutters as she tries to sit up.

It’s pitch black because of the power cutting out, so she forms a small, crackling ball of blue energy in her left hand. It casts just enough light that she can see, although her vision blurs slightly as she peers around the room, which is clouded with thick dust. Not wanting to inhale any of the particulates in, Felicity quickly covers her mouth with her sleeve and stumbles into the next corridor, which is thankfully dust-free.

“This… really isn’t good.”

Searching for the data lines or blue sparks of electricity in the air yields nothing, which she supposes is what she should have expected. This bunker is so old-school it doesn’t even have power lines linked up to it. The generator that was attached to it has been shaken apart by whatever explosion wrecked the place. The technopath wonders briefly for a moment whether or not it was one of her Deviants of one of the CIA operatives that triggered it.

The atrium of the bunker that was used as a sort of hub back in the ‘50s and ‘60s looks unstable, with the ceiling partially caving in. It’s not made out of the proper concrete to reinforce the foundations like the bunkers of today are constructed from, which means that right now, the structure has a high potential to collapse completely. Throwing the ball of energy up into the air, the electrokinetic adjusts it so it hovers and provides light throughout the space. It’s sapping her cells of electricity to do it, but she’s useless without her sight down here. She finds that the exit door has warped in the frame; there’s no getting out of here by herself. She digs her burner phone out of her pocket and just as she suspected, there’s no signal - it won’t even turn on. Felicity is well and truly stuck.

She’s too exhausted to be scared, so instead, she just settles on being overcome with anxiety. “Guess it’s just you and me trapped down here, huh,” she mumbles to her baby, her hand rubbing her stomach.

She freezes when she feels the barrel of a gun press up against the back of her head. “Yeah, guess it is,” a breathless, shaky male voice replies. Felicity swallows, her throat thickening and heart beginning to race. It’s Oliver. She would recognize his voice anywhere. The gun doesn’t waver at all, and stays firmly pressed to her skull. 

“You’re really gonna shoot me in the back of the head, Agent Queen?” she asks hoarsely. “After everything we’ve been through? You’re not even gonna look me in the eye?” Oliver doesn’t respond. Felicity drops her gaze to the floor with a shuddered breath. “I guess it’s what I deserve. I’m a monster after all. I don’t deserve to live. Might as well kill me like an animal if you and the government are gonna treat me like one.”

After a moment, the gun lowers. Felicity carefully glances over her shoulder to see that Oliver has taken a few cautious steps back. It gives her her first proper look at him that’s not in passing as she’s sprinting for her life, and she’s alarmed by what she sees. Oliver’s wearing standard SWAT gear but looks battered and beaten, his hair disheveled and face heavily bruised. His eyes glint like two blue diamonds, filled with apprehension and a smidge of distress.

“Can’t kill you yet,” Oliver eventually replies, sounding as equally tired and rough as her. “Need your ball of light to see. Might need you and your powers to get out of here. That’s the only reason I’m keeping you alive.”

Felicity clenches her jaw. “Fair enough,” she says, clipped. It’s painful to hear somebody talk about her as if she’s only worthy of living because of the usefulness of her powers to them. It’s especially agonizing to hear Oliver say those things, knowing he has to mean them, when he’s the man Felicity loves despite everything.

If Oliver sees the flash of hurt on her face, the agent ignores it. He keeps his gun trained on her warily as he motions towards the door. “Is it stuck?”

“Yep,” she nods. She angles her body, hoping that he can’t see the swell of her stomach. Her suit should distort her body shape enough to hide it, and she’s not big enough yet to be really noticeable - but she’s not taking any chances.

Oliver _cannot_ find out about the baby. She refuses to put her unborn child in danger - because there’s no telling what their father will do if he finds out about them. Oliver thinks she is a monster, so he could think their baby is too. Felicity killed Tommy - if Oliver wants revenge on her, there would be no better target than her son or daughter.

When she sees that the agent is looking at her scrutinizingly, she tries to draw his attention away from her back to the door. “That explosion, was it your lot or mine?”

Oliver emits a noise of disgust. “It was probably Chase,” he growls, shoving past her to examine the door himself. “That maniac loves his C4 and grenades.”

Catching herself on the wall, Felicity exhales unsteadily as her vision begins to swim again, stomach twisting. There are two reasons why she could be feeling like this: morning sickness or a concussion. Not wanting to risk passing out when she’s trapped with her enemy, the Deviant slides down the wall until she’s sitting leaning up against it, legs stretched out in front of her. She tilts her head back in fatigue, hoping that resting might help the nausea fade. In accordance with her emotions and energy levels, the floating light ball writhes and pulses, causing Oliver to peer up at it suspiciously before his eyes dart over to her.

The agent casts her a disdainful look. “Don’t think I’m going to take pity on you if you’re sick or you’ve been hurt. You killed my best friend and I’ll never forget that, Smoak.” Smoak. They’re back to using surnames now. No more first name privilege. Despite saying all of this, Oliver still asks, “How are you feeling?”

Felicity can’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “You don’t care,” she shrugs.

Oliver bristles but doesn’t argue. It’s because he can’t, Felicity knows that. He hates her. And knowing that is destroying her. He moves away from the warped door to the center of the atrium, so he can determine which corridor to tackle next. Felicity watches on tiredly. “My phone is dead so I can’t call for help, but there’s got to be another exit to this place. Tunnels or something.”

“It’s a Cold War bunker, Agent Queen, it’s meant to be unbreachable,” Felicity sighs. “There was one tunnel down the corridor over there -” she points, “- but it caved in decades ago.”

“This entire place is going to come down on us if we don’t get out of here,” Oliver snaps. “Is there any way you can use your powers?”

“If there was, don’t you think I would have tried it already? The best bet we have of escaping this place is waiting for or a rescue team to come, or more reliably, Lyla to teleport back. Our field protocols mean that won’t be for another 48 hours at least. Until then, we’re basically in lockdown.” Thinking about the fact that she could be stuck down here with Oliver for a couple of _days_ , not just hours, creates a bitter taste at the back of her mouth. One that makes her want to throw up again. “Look, can we please just - agree not to try and kill each other until we’re out of here?”

The agent glares at her from across the other side of the room but spits out, “Fine. Would be a waste of energy on my part anyway.”

“Great. I guess that makes us enemies who are reluctant allies, then. Can you please put your gun down or away? I don’t want that thing to go off accidentally.” - _and risk harming the baby_.

Although he grumbles unhappily about it, Oliver checks the safety is on and shoves it into the back of his waistband before traipsing over and slumping against the wall next to her. Felicity holds herself tensely, trying not to flinch, as he gets comfortable on the floor about five feet away from her. Oliver doesn’t seem to care that they’re within arms reach of each other, because he concentrates on stripping off his SWAT jacket. It reveals that he’s wearing a skin-tight black vest underneath that shows off every inch of his huge rippling muscles. Felicity feels her mouth growing dry and forces herself to look away, staring steadfastly at her shoelaces.

“Why do you keep holding your stomach like that?” Oliver asks suddenly.

Felicity’s heart leaps into her throat. She drops her arms to her sides as casually as she can and sneaks a fearful glance over at the agent. He just looks annoyed, though, not suspicious. She didn’t even realize she’s been protectively stroking over her small baby bump, wanting to subconsciously shield her child from everything that’s going on and simultaneously assure herself that her son or daughter is okay.

“Got menstrual cramps,” she lies.

Oliver wrinkles his nose in revulsion. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“You asked,” she shoots back.

Weirdly, Oliver starts rummaging around in his SWAT jacket. He pulls out a couple of energy bars and a packet of Tylenol. He chucks it across the gap between them into her lap with a grunt, not commenting anything else. Thank god it’s not Advil, because otherwise, Felicity wouldn’t be able to take it while pregnant. She checks the tamper seal on the pill packet to make sure that she’s not going to be poisoned before popping one and dry-swallowing it. She inches the Tylenol back across the floor towards Oliver with a murmur of thanks.

“We should try and find water,” Oliver mutters. “Just in case we’re here for a while. Maybe food supplies as well.”

Felicity has to admit it’s a good idea. “I think I know where the stockpile room is. There has to be at least one sealed barrel of water and safe packet of saltines. It won’t take us long to sort through all the supplies if we search together.”

It’s like poking a bear with a sharp stick. Oliver instantly wheels on her, eyes dark with fury as he snarls, looming over Felicity and making her cringe back, “There is no ‘ _us_ ’. There’s no ‘ _we_ ’! I only agreed to not kill you while we’re down here, I didn’t agree to work with you!”

The electrokinetic raises her hand warningly as he leans in closer and closer in a threatening manner, tiny blue lightning bolts zipping between her fingertips. It’s a clear message of ‘if you hurt me, I hurt you’ that Oliver seems to immediately accept, backing off with an expression of loathing and scorn. Storming off - in completely the wrong direction - he snipes back at her that she should get off her ass and help him. Rolling her eyes, Felicity heaves herself to her feet, bracing her baby bump hopefully out of Oliver’s sightline, and starts after him, to lead him in the right direction down the maze of corridors to the room where the food and water are stored. The ball of light follows them, hovering above their heads.

Fortunately, they’re able to find food and water in the stockpile room rather quickly, with Felicity finding two completely sealed and undamaged barrels of water and Oliver digging out some tins of various foods, as well as saltines. Cautious about the water perhaps being contaminated, Felicity hangs back in the doorway to let Oliver crack one of the barrels open first; she watches, biting her lip, as he dips his finger in to taste it for any metallic traces. Determining it to be safe, he fills two titanium, heat-resistant cans and offers one to her.

When Felicity doesn’t take it, not wanting to get too close to him in case he tries to grab her, Oliver huffs in frustration and sets it on top of a barrel, muttering under his breath about her being dramatic. Keeping an eye on the agent, Felicity takes her can and sips at the water, which despite its slightly stale taste, is completely fine. It’s cool from being inside the barrel and soothes her irritated throat. She finishes her can within a couple of minutes and hesitantly steps forward to scoop up another half a liter, hyper aware that she has to stay hydrated in order to remain healthy for the baby.

“Here.” Oliver throws a packet of saltines over his shoulder as he organizes the tins they can use later on. Catching it instinctively, Felicity shoots him a bemused glance, wondering why he seems to be expressing concern over what she eats. “You’re pale already and aren’t going to be able to maintain that light source for the next two or three days if you’re passing out. There are some lemon sherbets here too.” He turns, holding them out in her palm. When Felicity once again hangs back warily, he takes a rapid step towards her and shoves them into her hand with a scoff. “Stop looking at me like I’m gonna shoot you the moment your back is turned and just eat the damn candy, Smoak.”

Felicity glares at him but does as he says, because she is feeling a little light-headed and needs the sugar. The two of them gather up some more water and snacks, and then exit the stockpile room to go and find somewhere safer to hole up in the bunker that doesn’t have a crumbling ceiling. They find a small room that’s set up as living quarters, with about six metal bed frames without mattresses inside, that looks reasonably structurally stable; Oliver scrounges in the storage trunks in the corner to find some scratchy woolen blankets, which will hopefully keep them warm enough to survive the night.

She’s honestly feeling too exhausted to stand at this point, as constantly needing to use her powers to create a light source is sapping her energy - on top of the fact that she’s growing another whole ass tiny human being inside her, which is very draining. Flopping down on top of a file of blankets she’s nestled into a bed frame, Felicity groans as her weight is finally taken off her sore feet. She’s able to hunch her back to stretch her aching spine. Oliver does not look impressed by her at all, glowering at her from the side.

“If you’re gonna sit on your ass, I’m going to take your weird ball of light and go check out the generator to see if I can repair it and switch it back on,” he states, the judgment in his voice as he implies that she’s lazy making Felicity cringe.

“The light will fade if you take it away from me,” she grumbles. “I’ll have to come with.”

Sighing heavily, Felicity rolls out of her blanket nest and onto her feet - and is immediately struck by a tidal wave of dizziness and nausea. Her head is _killing_ her. Her knees crease beneath her and send her tumbling helplessly to the floor - but Oliver somehow darts up to her to catch her by her armpits, shoving her back into sitting on the bed. He grasps her wrists firmly on top of her thighs to try and keep her from falling off as Felicity’s spinning mind forgets what is up and what is down. This is not good, she manages to think through her wooziness and pain. This is not just low blood sugar. She might genuinely have a concussion. Wrapping her arm around her baby bump, Felicity tries to breathe steadily to get more oxygen to her brain. Unease prickles at her skin as she worries over whether the baby is okay.

Oliver cups her chin, forcing her to raise her head from where she’s dropped it to the point of hanging it upside side. His touch makes her flinch but the agent ignores her discomfort as he examines her pupils and takes her pulse in a very clinical, uncaring manner. His impassive expression just increases her anxiety to the point where she’s tensing and near hyperventilation.

“Did you bump your head when the explosion rocked through?” he asks briskly.

She nods and whimpers when even that hurts. “Lost consciousness for a minute or two.”

Oliver remains crouched in front of her, but leans across to grab one of the cans of water from where they’re stored with their little pile of food against the wall. As he does this, he tightens his grip on her arms, his large hand easily encompassing both of her thin wrists. “Still got those menstrual cramps,” he comments in a falsely light tone. “Must be pretty bad.”

“Don’t be a dick, Agent Queen,” she growls. 

He doesn’t respond and instead pushes the water can into her palms. “Drink,” Oliver commands. “And lie back. You haven’t got uneven or dilated pupils, but you probably have a minor concussion.”

She blinks at him feebly. “But the generator…”

“We can take a look at the generator tomorrow. Try and rest for now. I’ll wake you up every few hours to make sure you’re not falling into a coma and so you can take more Tylenol.”

It’s either her concussion or her going crazy, but Felicity thinks she can hear a hint of sympathy in his rough voice. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Oliver’s expression shutters and in an instant, he’s back on the defensive, blue eyes burning with hatred as he hisses, “I’m keeping you alive out of necessity, and because my orders state I need to bring you in still breathing. Don’t start thinking I give an actual shit about how you feel, because I _don’t_.”

Felicity keeps her gaze lowered so she doesn’t have to look him in the eye. It’s a submissive move, but she doesn’t know how to deal with the emotional whiplash, so her instinct is to withdraw to protect herself from harm. What scares her is that she truly doesn’t know whether or not Oliver will lay a hand on her in anger; she used to trust him with her life and now she’s certain he wants to end it, after what she did to Tommy. Standing abruptly, Oliver’s knees knock into Felicity’s as he twists around and stalks to the bed he’s claimed for himself - on the opposite end of the room, the furthest away from her he could possibly be. It’s a clear dismissal; he’s done with her for now.

Throughout the night, Oliver rouses her from her sleep to give her more pupil and pulse checks and prod her into choking down more Tylenol and water. Drawn and exhausted, it’s obvious that he would rather be sleeping than keeping an eye on her. Felicity doesn’t think she’s ever felt like more of a burden. Every time after she’s woken and cared for by him for five minutes, she drifts off back to sleep trembling all over and feeling guilty for _existing_ , because she’s such a pain for the agent to be dealing with.

When Felicity next wakes naturally, her head still feeling like a jackhammer has been repeatedly slammed into it, it takes her a moment to realize that Oliver is sitting directly beside her in the pitch black. In a panicked frenzy, she creates another light source that bursts into existence above their heads. After the initial shock and pain of her eyes having to adjust to the sudden brightness, her vision adjusts and she’s able to see the agent more clearly.

He’s cross-legged beside her - and staring directly down at her baby bump, with a look of awe and confusion on his face. She stills, breath catching in her throat as terror floods through her, turning her blood to ice. He knows. He’s seen and he _knows_. Her powers betray her, exposing she’s conscious again by responding to her fluctuating emotions; in response to her fear, miniature charged bolts of electricity crackle across her skin, sparking at her fingertips.

Oliver’s eyes flicker up to her face. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a slight furrow in his brow. “You’re pregnant,” he says matter-of-factly. Felicity stays silent, her mouth so dry that she doesn’t think she would be able to speak anyway. The agent doesn’t care about her quietness though, as he continues, “You should have told me,” in a voice that is far, far too casual for the situation they’ve found themselves in.

“Why?” she rasps.

The agent raises and drops his shoulders in a shrug. “I wouldn’t have pointed my gun at you. Might have offered you one of my energy bars. Probably wouldn’t have been so harsh.” Felicity must look shocked, because his flippancy transforms into annoyance. “Look, I’m not evil, I’m not gonna abuse a pregnant woman, even if she is my enemy.”

He turns his attention back to his lap. A quick glance sideways alerts Felicity to the fact that he’s cleaning his gun, and in a split second, she’s swamped with dread again, shaking all over. Is Oliver cleaning his weapon in preparation to put a bullet in her? 

“Who’s the lucky guy?” he asks sourly. “One of your Deviant buddies? Who would the legendary Overwatch allow to knock her up and take her out of action?”

Overwhelmed with panic, Felicity rolls over onto her side and curls up protectively around her baby bump, turning her back to Oliver. Maybe if he shoots her now, it will shield the baby from the bullet. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Dad out of the picture then?”

The more questions Oliver asks, the closer he’s going to get to the truth. “Something like that,” Felicity mumbles, hoping that he stops interrogating her.

He chokes out a bitter laugh. “Another _meaningless_ one night stand for you?” he sneers.

“No,” Felicity immediately retorts forcefully.

Her chest tightens and aches as tears fill her eyes. God, it was such a mistake back then to call her and Oliver’s night together meaningless when it meant so much to her - so much to _them_. Felicity shouldn’t have denied it aloud though, because now the agent’s full attention is back on her, searching her face as if he might understand why she was so quick to protest. Searching for a weakness in her already damaged emotional shields that he can use to exploit or manipulate her, as his CIA training dictates.

She regrets that night in Boston only because of the wound on her heart that resulted from the aftermath, when she had to push Oliver away. It’s left a permanent scar on her that twinges painfully whenever she looks at him and remembers; it’s her punishment for falling in love with him in the first place. Felicity hates feeling like her entire soul is laid bare to Oliver, but he’s always been able to affect her in ways she’s never experienced before. She’s vulnerable around him, because she loves him, and she’s never hated herself more.

“Are you _crying_?” Oliver sounds stunned.

And doesn’t that just make her cry harder? Shitty pregnancy hormones, messing with her emotions. Stupid Oliver, for unknowingly being the father of her child and treating her so cruelly even though she deserves it, for killing his best friend. “Fuck off,” she sobs.

For a brief moment, Felicity thinks that the agent is going to listen to her, return to his bunk and leave her alone, but then a hesitant hand lands and rests gently on her arm. It’s a minimal attempt at comforting her, something he doesn’t have to put much effort into doing. If this were happening before Felicity had killed Tommy and before Oliver had sworn to kill her, he might be sweeping her up for a hug and rubbing her back, whispering soothing words into her ear. She and Oliver weren’t particularly affectionate or intimate with each other before things turned sour between them, but he could at least touch her without her wanting to recoil away from him, petrified of being attacked. 

The agent’s voice is strangely soft when he questions, “If it wasn’t meaningless, does that mean you loved the guy?”

She shivers, clutching a blanket closer to her chest. Heat radiates from Oliver’s side, which is pressed against her back, grounding her but also making her body crave more. Months without kind contact between them have starved her physically. Her pregnancy is only increasing her need to be held, but she won’t get that sort of attentiveness from her enemy. Felicity honestly doesn’t want to open up a discussion about this, lest she give too much away and Oliver figures out that she’s talking about _him_ , but her mouth opens and she croaks, “Yes.”

A beat and then Oliver says, confused, “But you said he’s sort of out of the picture.”

“Also yes.”

“Is he dead?”

“No.”

“Is he not around? Did he bail?”

Her heart skips a beat. “You could say that.”

Blessed silence falls between them. It’s not as uncomfortable as Felicity thought it might be. There’s something companionable about the two of them, enemies who were one-time lovers, sitting in semi-darkness on a squeaky Cold War bunker bed. Oliver’s hand doesn’t move from where it rests on her arm. Above them, her light source whirs and pulses, bathing them in pale blue light and threatening to wink out as exhaustion eats away at Felicity once again; her concussion and pregnancy, on top of constantly using her electrokinetic powers, are really mentally and physically tiring her.

Oliver pokes her side as she’s beginning to doze off, startling her back into full alertness. “How far along are you?” There’s no suspicion in his voice, only blatant curiosity.

“Um, second trimester,” she answers vaguely. She can’t tell him how many weeks or months she is because the agent is fully capable of basic math. “I’m meant to know the gender by now but -” she shrugs. “I can’t exactly get an appointment with an OB when I’m on the run.”

Humming thoughtfully, Oliver’s hand slides off her arm and the soft clinking of metal starts up. Felicity tenses. He’s back to cleaning his gun again. “Is the reason the dad is out of the picture because you haven’t told him, not that he doesn’t want to be involved?”

Felicity doesn’t know what to say. In all honesty, she doesn’t really want to say anything, but Oliver sounds determined to get an answer to this. She’s treading in dangerous waters here. Eventually, she just settles on mumbling, “I can’t tell him.”

“Why not?” the agent challenges her. “If you love him then surely you want him to know. He’s the father of your child, shouldn’t you give him the choice over whether he wants to be a parent to your baby or not?”

She bristles defensively. “It’s not as simple as that.”

“Sounds like you’re complicating everything, as usual,” Oliver replies with a derisive snort.

There it is. The judgment she’s been expecting. As if _Oliver_ , a man who works for the US government that supports the illegal torture and experimentation of powered children, has the right to pass judgment on _her_ decision making. This is the life and death of her unborn child they’re talking about, and yes, he is their father, but he doesn’t know that - and if she gets her way, he will _never_ know that. Sitting up, the technopath vaults off the bed, cradling her baby bump, so she can stare him directly in the eye. Startling when he sees the glint of determination in her gaze, the agent leans back from her, narrowing his eyes.

“Oliver, if he knew about the baby he would want to kill them,” she says, her voice calm but brittle. Taken back by this claim, Oliver’s jaw drops. “Is that a good enough excuse to keep the father out of it?”

Something dark sparks in his eyes. “Is the guy abusive then?” Oliver demands to know, raising the volume of his voice. “A psycho who likes murdering babies?”

“No!” At least - god, she _hopes_ not. She’s sitting across from him and also stuck here for the next two days with him either way.

Oliver slams his hand down on the metal bed railing, making it rattle and her jump. “Then how can you know he wants to kill _your_ baby?”

“Because he wants to kill _me!_ ” Felicity yells, leaping to her feet.

Spooked by her sudden rage, Oliver peers up at her with wide eyes. A myriad of expressions flash over his face in the next few seconds; his shocked expression morphs to one of disbelief, before turning into contemplation, denial, and then finally bewilderment. Felicity falters, apprehension pooling in her gut; she’s gone too far this time, and given away too much information. He’s suspicious, which is _not_ good. Something about arguing with Oliver just brings a prickly side out of her where she feels like she needs to justify her actions to him, no matter whether or not she’s trying to keep the reason behind her behavior a secret.

She needs to put him off the scent. She deflects her words from implying he is the baby’s father by adding, “You’re not the only person in this world who hates me, Agent Queen. When you live a life like mine, you make a lot of enemies, and there are plenty of people who would love to see me dead. ”

Oliver doesn’t appear to buy it, but he nods. “I can’t ever imagine why,” he replies sarcastically with a curl of his lip in disdain.

“Because there are wicked people who exist who get off on the suffering of innocent kids being used as lab rats, and enjoy massacring the individuals trying to save them. And I’m one of those individuals,” she fires back fiercely. God, the man knows how to get on her nerves. Felicity wishes she could say she straight-up _hates_ Oliver, but it’s infinitely more complex than that because she loves him and is terrified of him simultaneously. “Having powers just makes me even more of a target.”

Oliver stands and shoves into her personal space, vibrating with anger as he spits, “Having powers makes you a threat to the safety and security of the citizens of the United States.”

“Just like the Jews were a ‘threat’ to the safety and security of the citizens of Germany back when the Nazis were ruling?” She crosses her arms over the top of her baby bump, glaring at him. “I’m Jewish, you know. My great-grandparents were killed in Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. My grandparents barely escaped as teenagers. I know exactly what oppressed, discriminated people look like, Queen.”

“What are you trying to say?” he scowls.

“You are hunting down my people like animals!” Felicity shouts, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. Blue sparks tingle at the ends of her fingertips due to her outrage, and without even realizing it, she singes a small hole into Oliver’s undershirt. The light source floating above them has darkened and changed into a furiously writhing red mass, reflecting her ire. “Deviants are human too! We were normal US citizens before that stupid alien tech crash and the dark matter wave, and _we are still US citizens now_! We have rights! And the US government? For us, aren’t looking all that different from the Nazis right now!”

Oliver looks shaken. Down to his very foundations. He takes a stumbling step back. “That’s - that’s not fair,” he retorts weakly. “We’re… we’re not…”

Tears spring into her eyes as she listens to him attempt to defend his employers, when only months ago, he agreed with her cause and was helping her rescue Deviants. “It’s not fair my people are suffering another Holocaust because of you.”

“You think I want this?” the agent cries, throwing his arms out. “I don’t want to do shit like this, Felicity! I just _work_ for the CIA, I’m just doing what I’m told.”

She shakes her head. “Even if you didn't start it, are just under orders or are just passively standing by, you're still actively partaking in committing the genocide. You're still part of the cause of it.”

“I - I honestly think you’re blowing things out of proportion.” But the terrible shame on Oliver’s face tells another story; he’s finally realising the impact of his and the CIA’s actions, finally seeing the slippery slope his government is sliding down into becoming a tragic echo of the evil, cruel monsters who massacred millions of innocent people in Europe for purely existing.

Felicity lowers her voice to a fearful whisper. “The Gestapo and SS used to kill pregnant Jews because they claimed they were criminals increasing the number of undesirables in Germany. _I’m_ a Deviant who is pregnant - and I’m painfully aware that the government will either want me and my baby dead, or the two of us alive so I can become a slave to their wills, and my child can be turned into a science experiment.” Crying is not something she can stop herself from doing now. “I am _terrified_. And to have my baby’s father working for them -”

She freezes. Feels the blood draining from her face. No. No, no, no. She did not just - but she did. And Oliver is staring at her in horror, stunned realization sweeping over his face. His eyes, now filled with torment, flicker down to her pregnant belly. Felicity can’t move; every instinct in her is screaming that she needs to back off, get away, _run_ if she has to - but her feet remain rooted to the floor as the adrenaline flooding her bloodstream sends her into shock.

“Felicity, is the baby mine?” Oliver asks, his voice a mere croak. When Felicity doesn’t verbally reply, too scared to get any words out, he questions more forcefully, “Are you pregnant with my baby?”

Her legs finally respond to her brain’s shrieking to get out of what could potentially turn into a catastrophic situation. Trembling, she takes a step back, rapidly glancing over at the door. Oliver catches the movement of her eyes though and with a growl, grabs her wrists, and leads her over to his bed, which is the furthest from the exit.

Keeping a tight hold on her arms, to the point where Felicity knows there’ll be imprints or even bruises later, the agent snarls, “You are _not_ running away from me until you answer my questions!” Felicity whimpers. The pathetic noise escapes her mouth uncontrollably. Hearing it, though, Oliver softens and releases her wrists. “ _Please_ , Felicity.”

Shuffling backward quickly so she can curl up in the corner, Felicity exhales shakily, trying to hide her face behind a curtain of her blonde hair. “Yes,” she says quietly. “The baby is yours.”

Oliver begins to pace impatiently in front of her. Being hunched into the corner is frightening her because she feels like prey he’s trapped in preparation for making the final lethal strike. Felicity’s frantic gaze finds his gun. It’s still dismantled for cleaning, poking out of her bed’s blankets. Fortunately, Oliver doesn’t appear to be gravitating towards grabbing it, but he’s blocking her exit route, probably on purpose.

Whipping around, his expression is desperate as he presses, “Are you sure?”

Whether he intends it or not, it comes across as a little condescending, and gets Felicity’s hackles up. “I calculated the possible dates of conception and our one night stand in Boston fits in the middle of the window,” she grits out. “I haven’t slept with anybody in the last three years except you.”

“But we… we used a condom.”

Felicity resists the urge to snarkily ask him if he’s ever heard of them breaking. “It must have been faulty.”

Oliver looks devastated. “... You really didn’t want to tell me because you thought I’d want to kill our baby?” he asks, voice breaking.

“Sins of the mother are the sins of the child, right?” Felicity chokes out a harsh laugh, tears brimming once again. She just can’t seem to stop crying. “You said you wanted to kill me, and by doing that, you’ll kill the baby. It isn’t rocket science.”

“Jesus, you would have been pregnant when you killed Tommy.” The agent rubs his hands over his face, slumping against the doorframe in defeat. “Tommy was going to shoot you. And that toddler you were carrying. And our unborn child. You killed my best friend to protect yourself, a Deviant kid, and our baby.”

She sighs. “Yes, I did,” he says dejectedly.

Stalking back toward her, Oliver stops his approach short with an agonized expression when Felicity cowers into her corner, eying him warily. “Do you regret killing him?”

“I’m not answering that.” She looks at him sharply.

It’s an incredibly simple question but one there is not an easy answer for. Because at the time, she stopped Tommy’s heart and brain activity using her electrokinesis in pure survival, which saved her life, the child’s, and her baby’s, so she can’t feel guilty about that. Tommy also supported the US government’s torture, experimentation on, and slaughter of other Deviants. But he was Oliver’s best friend. Felicity caused him an immense amount of anguish by killing him, which in turn hurt her because it’s what caused her to lose him for what she thinks might be for good. Of course, she mourns Tommy’s death and is apologetic that it happened, but… yes, there’s definitely not a way she can reply to Oliver’s question without offending or angering him.

“Why?” the agent narrows his eyes.

Felicity swallows and nods over at her bed. “Because your gun is over there and if you don’t like my answer, you could grab it and shoot me in less than three seconds if you wanted to.” Being the center of attention isn’t doing her any good, so she springs to her feet, using the bed railing and wall to steady herself. Her headache isn’t as painful as before and she thinks she might be able to focus her brain on something without feeling faint. “Let’s grab breakfast and then go look at the generator.”

“You can’t just change the subject,” Oliver snaps. “I’m not going to forget you’re pregnant with my child and that you purposefully hid that from me.”

“Can you blame me?” she hisses. “You’re my _enemy_.”

He points at her accusingly. “You’ve lied to me before, when I wasn’t. You told me our one night stand was meaningless back in Boston but just told me now that it wasn’t and that you _loved_ me.”

“Yes, because I did, and I knew we couldn’t and can’t be together so I was protecting my heart. And inadvertently, protecting yours!” she argues. “Can you imagine how much worse you would feel and how much _more_ you would hate me if we’d started a relationship after that night and _then_ I’d killed Tommy?”

“I feel pretty shit already so I honestly don’t know _how_ I could feel worse!” Oliver growls. “And I feel shit because of you - _AGAIN_ , because let me tell you, you rejecting me back in Boston almost destroyed me - and why? Because you basically called me a Nazi and say that you’re scared I might want to kill our baby!”

“Will you?” she shouts.

“No, of course fucking not!” he yells. “I’m not a monster like -” Oliver cuts himself off, going pale.

“Like me?” Felicity finishes for him bitterly, her chest heaving. “Really? Is that what you were going to say?”

The agent scoffs, bending over to pick up his water can and a tin of soup with a peel-back lid. “God, you’re so egotistical.”

“Pot calling a kettle black,” she shoots back. “I’m the pregnant one but you always have to make _everything_ about you. Boohoo, Oliver’s feelings were hurt because Felicity is so fucking terrified of him that she decided to protect her baby from him the only way she knew how. Grow up, you dick.” She snatches her own soup tin and water can up from the floor and turns her back on him. “Before judging me, you should take a look at yourself. You work for a bunch for government douchebags who are hunting, caging, and doing scientific experiments on innocent people for their own benefit, but are hiding that behind so-called ‘safety and security measures’ for the public.”

Her last couple of sentences apparently don’t register with Oliver, because he repeats incredulously, “You’re terrified of _me?_ You - you have _superpowers_ , you could kill me like -” He clicks his fingers. “- that! Why the hell would you be scared of me?”

Felicity clenches her jaw and remains silent. She doesn’t want to, and cannot, answer that. If Oliver finds out that she still cares for him and wouldn’t be able to bring herself to harm him, he could use that vulnerability against her. “We can’t seem to have a civil discussion without it dissolving into a fight, so why don’t we put a pin in this discussion for later, eat, and go and take a look at the generator,” she suggests calmly.

“Fine,” Oliver bites out, sounding almost like he’s sulking. 

They sit at opposite ends of the room as they gulp down their cold tomato soup tins. It’s not a particularly pleasant meal, but it’s made more tolerable when Felicity dunks some saltines in and munches down on those as well. When Oliver tosses the Tylenol over, she swallows one of the pills wordlessly before chucking the box back. She doesn’t thank him. Last time she thanked him, he didn’t react too well.

Their mission to potentially fix up or re-start the underground bunker’s generator is a bust. It’s been rocked roughly on its foundations by the explosion and the thick metal casing has slightly warped, which is not a good sign to begin with, and when Felicity attempts to use her electrokinesis to give it a jump-start, she just ends up exhausting herself to the point of light-headedness again. Maintaining the light source becomes an effort for her as she ends up leaning heavily on Oliver’s side to stay upright, too sick to care that she’s in such close bodily contact with her enemy.

The agent declares there’s no point in continuing soon after that; Felicity suspects he might be worried about the baby when he softly tells her they’ll head back to the living quarters so she can lie down. He manages to find some emergency wind-up torches and lamps in a maintenance cabinet in the generator room, which means the electrokinetic can finally release the ball of light and stop wasting energy on it.

“Oliver, stop,” she forces out, as he supports her weight while they stumble back through the atrium. “Stop, stop, _stop_. I’m gonna throw up.” He releases her waist just in time for Felicity to stagger over to the corner behind some rubble and empty the meager contents of her stomach. She feels mildly better after but the foul taste in her mouth makes her eyes water. Oliver catches her when she trips into his arms on her way back over to him. “Sorry. Not… feeling so great. Could be morning sickness or just nausea from overusing my powers.”

“You shouldn’t have been trying to re-start the generator in the state you’re in,” Oliver says, frustrated.

She casts him a glower. “What, pregnant?”

“No, concussed.” He doesn’t look at her as they continue their journey back to the living quarters. “My fault. Should have seen I was pushing you too much. You have a tendency to overexert yourself without realizing it.”

Felicity shakes her head, puzzled. “Why would it be your fault? I’m the idiot who didn’t say something sooner.”

“But I knew you _wouldn’t_ say anything,” Oliver replies. “Which makes it my responsibility to tell you to back down. You can’t be straining your body like this constantly, it’s not good for the baby.”

Oh. Right. Of course. Felicity exhales in vexation. She should have realized that the only reason Oliver is showing some semblance of concern for her is for the sake of his child who she’s carrying. While it is relieving to know that the agent does actually care about the baby - and doesn’t want to kill them, as she initially feared - her heart clenches painfully recognizing that Oliver only cares for her because of her function as a human incubator. He doesn’t care about _her_. Deep down, Felicity hoped that maybe he still held some affection for her, as she does for him. Now she knows that’s not the case, she’s going to enforce her preservative emotional barriers. She refuses to have her heart shattered again.

If Oliver does love their baby, how far will he be willing to go to protect them? That’s the real question. Would he be willing to give up his entire life as a CIA agent in order to keep them safe, if that were necessary? Would he be willing to stand in the line of fire to shield them from the harm his friends and co-workers will most likely wish upon the baby? These kinds of thoughts continue to plague Felicity’s stressed mind as Oliver guides her down onto her bed.

He’s about to walk away back to his own bunk when she whispers, “Oliver,” to get his attention. He glances back at her, and seeing her agitated expression, returns to sitting on the edge of the bed frame at her side, hand tentatively resting on hers. “Look, I know you hate my guts. But when I’m captured by the CIA or you or one of your teammates puts a bullet in my head, please… I’m begging you… please make sure our baby doesn’t end up in one of those government labs to be experimented on.”

“I don’t hate you. And of course I’ll make sure our baby is safe. “A funny look passes over his face. “And you mean if, not when.”

“What?”

“You mean _if_ you get captured or killed,” he emphasizes, frowning. “Not when.” Felicity struggles to swallow past the unexpected lump in her throat and focuses her gaze on the floor so she doesn’t have to meet his eyes. “You didn’t misspeak,” he says, sounding horrified. “You do mean when.”

“I’m tired, Oliver,” she confesses. And it’s true. She can feel the fatigue in her bones, dragging her down into a dark pit. Felicity doesn’t know how long she’s been battling the chains of fear and depression for, but she’s accepted her fate. The government’s hunt for Deviants is not going to end anytime soon, and she’ll never know peace. “Of running, fighting… I don’t know how much longer I can stand to live this life for.”

His voice is wild with desperation as he insists, “Then you can retire as a vigilante and look after all the Deviant kids you and the others have rescued and are keeping safe God knows where. You can raise our baby in a safe and stable home off the grid.” She hums in a non-committal manner. Oliver growls and grabs her chin, forcing her to look directly at him. She flinches, but doesn’t pull away, mesmerized by his furious yet sorrowful blue eyes. “Felicity, I swear to fucking god, if you deliberately let yourself be captured or shot, I will kill you myself,” he asserts. “You are not allowed to die.”

She gulps and replies weakly, “That’s a change of heart.”

He emits a noise of exasperation, letting go of her chin so he can run his hand through his hair in distress. “I was wrong before,” Oliver finally says. His voice is low and defeated. “I was being an asshole to you. I knew you didn’t have a choice and acted in self-defense when you killed Tommy, but I was still a dick to you about it and called you a monster.” He bows his head, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry, Felicity. My behavior was - despicable. I can only hope you find it in your heart to forgive me enough to allow me to be around our son or daughter, when they’re born.”

“You want to be in the baby’s life?” This is a curveball Felicity was not expecting.

Oliver looks thrown. “Why wouldn’t I?”

That’s a good question. Felicity assumed that he wouldn’t want to be because he hates her and doesn’t want anything to do with her. But he’s just told her he doesn’t, in fact, hate her - which is confusing by itself, because he should - and given that he is still working for the CIA, despite everything they’ve done… she averts her gaze, shifting uncomfortably as she rubs over her baby bump. “You’re my enemy and you swore to kill me.”

“Screw being enemies,” he snarls. “And screw my stupid promise to kill you! I want to be involved in our child’s upbringing. I shouldn’t have ever threatened your life in the first place.”

The self-loathing in his voice triggers a twinge of sympathy in her. “Your anger was and is understandable,” Felicity says quietly. “You’d just lost your best friend because of me, you were grieving.”

Oliver curls his fingers into his thighs so viciously that it has to be painful. “That doesn’t give me the excuse to abuse the woman I love!” A tense beat of silence passes in which that last word hangs over them like an ominous shadow, and then Oliver utters a panicked, “ _Shit_ ,” grabs their water cans and escapes the room like wolves are biting his heels. 

Felicity feels like the earth has been yanked from beneath her feet. Her heart is thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings in her aching chest, making her pulse pound in her ears. It must have been a mistake, she reckons, that’s why Oliver reacted the way he did when he realized what he said. He used the ‘L’ word by accident. And if he ever did ‘L’ word her at some point, he definitely doesn’t now. It was just a tense slip. He _can’t_ love her now. That’s impossible, right? Oliver doesn’t hate her, sure, but he just tolerates her; all of his behavior suggests he can barely stand to be around her. He can’t love her. Unless… he’s doing what she did to him. Pulling back and pushing her away, pretending not to love her to protect himself and her from more emotional pain. Her head is spinning.

She’s startled out of her musings by a sudden swooping sensation in her abdomen. Felicity blinks, staring down at her bump with furrowed eyebrows. She knows what trapped gas feels like, and it was _not_ that. After another couple of seconds, the feeling returns - it’s faint fluttering, like butterflies in her stomach. It takes far too long for her genius but pregnancy-addled brain to figure out what it is, and when she finally does, her heart soars.

She’s feeling the baby move for the first time.

Overcome with excitement, she forgets all about the argument she and the agent just had as she shouts, “Oliver! Oliver, get back in here, the baby is moving! I can feel the baby move!”, wanting him to be able to share this with her, despite the bad blood between them.

Oliver practically sprints back in the room, crashing into the doorframe and then staggering over to the bed with wide, amazed eyes. “Are you serious?” he gasps. He kneels down and without asking permission, presses his palms against the baby bump, concentrating. “Are they still moving?” Felicity nods, cracking a shy smile as the flutters continue. Oliver, however, looks disappointed. “I can’t feel anything.”

She bites her lip, feeling a little guilty that she got him so amped up for no payoff. “You’ll be able to when they’re a bit bigger,” she offers. “They’re only about the size of a grapefruit right now.”

He glances up at her carefully. “Are you going to let me be around you, later in the pregnancy?”

Felicity’s heart sinks. She didn’t think of that. She’ll be living at the Deviant community up at Wollaston Lake, and they can’t risk being outsiders in, especially outsiders who happen to be CIA agents. If Oliver continues to work for the CIA, he can’t be allowed in their community, which means that he won’t only miss the rest of her pregnancy, but he will also miss the birth and childhood of their kid. If Oliver isn’t working for the government though… “I don’t suppose you’d quit your job if it meant you’d be able to live with us and help me raise them in a co-parenting situation?” she asks, her voice small.

Oliver’s face contorts into an expression of aggravation. Strangely, though, Felicity can tell it’s not her he’s angry with. “I can’t leave the CIA until I finish out my contract and complete my operation.”

“And what’s that?”

He stares at her hopelessly. “Capturing you.”

So Oliver has got himself into an impossible situation. He wants to leave the CIA so he can help her raise their child, but he can’t do that until he brings her in, which will endanger her and the baby. At this point, though, now she knows that Oliver wants to be involved, she desperately wants him to come with them to Wollaston. “Can’t you just run away?” she pleads.

“That won’t work, Felicity. It’s not that simple.”

“No, it never is,” she replies miserably. Upset at their dilemma, not at Oliver. “I just - I can’t let you be a part of my son or daughter’s life while you’re working for those monsters.”

“They’re _my_ son or daughter too, and you can’t stop me from seeing them,” he bristles. “If you go into hiding, I’ll - I’ll track you down and find you -”

“With the rest of your CIA buddies along for the ride?” she points out. Oliver wilts. She smiles sadly. “Would you risk our child’s life so you could see them, Oliver?”

“This isn’t fair.”

“The world never is.”

The atmosphere is subdued and downcast after that. The two of them sit in each other’s company for the rest of the day, conversing about Felicity’s pregnancy milestones so far and not much else. They certainly don’t get into any sort of depth regarding talking about their feelings for one another, and Felicity is honestly relieved at that, because she doesn’t know what she would say or how she would react if Oliver admitted anything.

At one point, Felicity realizes that their relationship has shifted. Yesterday they were enemies (turned friends), who were once lovers, and reluctant allies out of necessity. Now, she isn’t quite sure what they are. They’re not enemies anymore, but they’re more than allies, and not back at the friendship stage yet. They’re definitely not lovers - somehow the link between them is stronger than that not just because of the baby, but because of the complexity of their pasts together.

After they eat cold tinned potatoes and tuna for lunch, the two of them lay the scratchy down onto the concrete floor so they can lie on their backs side by side, staring up at the ceiling. Felicity creates a small electric light show for fun above them, that looks similar to a plasma ball but only involves her manipulating the electrons of the atoms in the air. Oliver watches on in intrigue.

“We should discuss baby names,” he says, eyes flickering between the crackling spheres of light floating near the ceiling.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet,” she admits.

“Will the baby have powers?” Oliver rolls over onto his side to face her, leaning on his elbow. “They’ll be Deviant too, right?”

Felicity shrugs. “I’m not really sure,” she says truthfully. “One of our healers back at camp, Caitlin, used to be a geneticist, and she thinks the dark matter that gives us our powers has incorporated itself into and altered our DNA. If being Deviant is a germline genetic modification, then the baby will probably develop powers.”

Oliver goes quiet. “I won’t let anybody hurt them,” he finally whispers. “Or you.”

After a moment, Felicity turns to mumble into his shoulder, “I hurt _you_. I’m so sorry. I… I shouldn’t have been so cruel to you after we slept together in Boston. I thought I was protecting us both, but I was just being selfish. I thought I knew what was best for us. What we had, I was losing myself in it - losing myself in _you_ … and it scared me how close we were getting.”

“It’s okay,” Oliver replies heavily. “I understand. You did hurt me, but I hurt you too.” He sighs sadly. “All we seem to do is hurt each other.”

“It’s always darkest before the dawn,” Felicity offers. She tentatively grasps his hand and places it on her baby bump. “This seems like a new beginning, to me. Maybe we can start over?”

“You really think that’s possible, after everything that’s happened and we’ve been through and done to each other?”

She nudges his side with her elbow. “I’m willing to try and make it work if you are.”

A beat passes and then the agent answers, voice wavering, “Okay, I’m good with that.”

That night, they sleep on their nest of blankets together on the floor, instead of separate bunks. Lying back to back and pressed up against each other, the technopath takes comfort from Oliver’s warmth radiating into her and the fact that he’s sleeping between her and the door, prepared to jump up to defend her and their unborn child.

She’s woken suddenly by somebody shaking her urgently, and Felicity blearily blinks up at Oliver’s face, which is unnerved and scared. Instantly on the alert, she sits up, trying to adjust her eyes to the semi-darkness by blinking, as the agent has a torch switched on in his hand. She’s about to ask what’s going on when she hears the aggressive whir of some mechanical equipment, echoing through the bunker.

“It’s the rescue team,” Oliver tells her in a harsh whisper. He looks genuinely shaken, which only alarms her more. “They’re here for me. Felicity, you _have_ to hide. If Chase is with them - Adrian won’t hesitate to kill you and the baby if he sees you.”

Lurching to her feet, Felicity uses her powers to create a small gold ball sized sphere of lightning she can carry around to light her away, instead of using a torch, which has beams that might expose her location. “I’ll go to the generator room,” she says, as calmly as she possibly can. She’s freaking out to the point of verging on a panic attack, but she knows that her losing it might trigger Oliver to lose it too, and he needs to keep his head on. “I can squeeze behind it and he won’t see me.”

He nods sharply. “Let’s go. Now. They haven’t managed to cut through the door yet but they will soon.”

Felicity hates running while pregnant because it makes her feel like a whale, but she doesn’t give a shit about that as she hurries through the atrium. There are sparks flying off the door as the CIA rescue team use some kind of saw or laser to cut through, but there isn’t an opening yet. Heart in her mouth, she casts one last look at Oliver, trying to silently beg him to _BE SAFE_ before darting off down the corridor to the generator room.

The tiny, cramped space behind the generator is stifling, but Felicity curls herself up there as tightly as possible, hoping she’s completely out of sight. Claustrophobia has never been an issue for her before, but she’s forced to extinguish her light sphere so she can remain undetected and being stuck in a miniscule space, pregnant and heavily sweating and wondering whether she’ll live through the next twenty minutes? Yeah, she’s never felt so petrified. But this isn’t an irrational fear - she believes Oliver when he says that his teammate will shoot her without a second thought if he spots her.

Squeezing her eyes closed, she tries to calm her breathing so it’s not so loud. Her mind drifts in a sea of darkness as Felicity squashes down her fear to focus on controlling inhaling and exhaling as quietly as she can.

Oliver’s voice and another, which must be Chase’s, are faint and incoherable in the distance. They converse for a while, but soon go silent. After about ten minutes have passed, Felicity thinks and hopes that she might be in the clear. Oliver has probably left with the rescue team, having convinced them he’s alone. While it’s depressing that they didn’t get to say goodbye to each other, it’s more important that their baby is safe.

She relaxes, slumping against the wall with a heavy sigh - and then screams as a rough hand lunges down and grabs her by her hair, wrenching her upwards. Felicity instinctively lashes out, trying to scratch her attacker with her nails, but it’s impossible for her to fight them as they drag her out of the crawl space and into the open. The first face she sees is Oliver’s, blurry but openly horrified as he stares at her, and then Adrian Chase appears, looming above her.

His eyes are feral and alight with something that is truly petrifying as he points his gun down at her. “Told you she was here, Queen,” he says in a mocking sing-song voice. “Animals like her always scuttle about in the dark underneath our noses, until you sniff them out to exterminate them. Oh, and look - she’s pregnant with another little monster. I’m going to enjoy this.”

He clicks the safety off his gun and aims at her head. Felicity flinches and closes her eyes in preparation for the blinding pain followed by endless black. She doesn’t know what to expect in death. Has she thought about it before? Yes, but not in great detail. All she can think about right now, though, is how it’s not just her who is going to lose her life tonight - her innocent unborn baby is going to die as well, and it’s all her fault.

A gunshot sounds, explosive and ringing in her ears, so loud that it’s like the noise is reverbating in her skull. And Felicity’s eyes slam open in shock, because she’s still alive.

Adrian Chase lies dead on the floor, his face frozen in death with an expression of astonishment. A pool of blood forms around his head. She drags her gaze up from the dead body to Oliver, who is panting and cleaning off the gun that Chase had been pointing at her with a fine microfiber cloth, probably to wipe off his prints. She’s dazed and confused but manages to put together what happened; before Chase was able to squeeze the trigger, Oliver disarmed him of his gun and used it to shoot him. He put a bullet in his teammate’s brain. For her. For their baby. To save them. To protect them.

“You killed him,” she says, feeling numb.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Oliver replies breathlessly, kneeling with the gun wrapped in the microfibre cloth so he can slot it into Chase’s dominant hand. “Adrian Chase just committed suicide. Totally lines up with the fact he’s a fucking maniac who’s failed his last three psychiatric evaulations for field work.” Felicity gapes at him in disbelief. Straightening back up, Oliver grabs her hand and tugs her out of the generator room and further down the corridor, where they never had the chance to explore. “C’mon. You need to find a new place to hide.”

Felicity lets the agent drag her further down the corridor, too stunned to do anything else. Oliver seriously just framed his teammate for suicide to protect her and the baby. He really is willing to do anything to keep them safe - including _murder_. If that isn’t partner and parent material, she doesn’t know what is. But also, the image of Chase with blood soaking his hair and his manic eyes glassy with death is absolutely horrific and plastered at the forefront of her mind. Felicity has to stop for a moment to throw up, trembling all over. Rubbing her back soothingly, Oliver half-carries her once she’s finished vomiting, seeing as her legs are too shaky for her to walk by herself.

They’re turning into another room that judging by the abandoned bullet shells on the floor, was for munitions back in the Cold War, when in a fleeting flash of light, Lyla teleports in, directly in front of them both. She immediately whips out a handgun to point at Oliver, but upon seeing how he’s shielding Felicity with his body, lowers it in confusion.

“Good timing,” the agent comments. “You need to get Felicity out of here, now.” He casts an anxious glance back out to the corridor. “I don’t think it’ll be possible for me to hide her much longer, and she and the baby need to be safe.”

Lyla blinks, eyes flitting between them. “So you two aren’t at each other's throats like you were three days ago… did you make up or something?”

“Or something,” Oliver repeats impatiently. “ _Please_ , go now!”

He turns, as if to walk away. Bewildered, Felicity catches his hand and yanks him back towards them. “What are you doing?” she demands. “You’re coming with us!”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. There are four other guys in the rescue crew who have seen me. If I disappear after Chase’s death? I’ll be suspect number one. Better they take me in for a debriefing so this can be cleared up. I won’t tell them _anything_ about you,” he swears vehemently. “I promise, Felicity. You can trust me. I won’t give you away. We’ll meet up again some other time.”

Felicity’s mouth dries. “You - you can’t just ask us to leave you here,” she says shakily. “Everything’s changed between us again, Oliver, we’ve made so much ground.”

“Yes, I can. In fact, I’m ordering you. I _have_ to stay, you _have_ to go,” he insists, his voice now thick with emotion. “I can’t lose you. Not again.”

“And I can’t lose you!” she cries. “Oliver, please -”

“I love you,” he cuts her off forcefully, cupping her face so they lock eyes. “Okay? I’m admitting it. _I love you._ Even when I hated you, I loved you. Which is _why_ I have to let you go. And if you love me too, and by god I hope you do - you have to let _me_ go. That’s the way it has to be, Felicity.”

Choking out a sob, Felicity throws herself into Oliver’s embrace and kisses him, throwing her arms around his shoulders as she presses her lips bruisingly to his, overcome with desperation. He kisses her back just as frantically, deepening it as he wraps his arms around her waist so they’re brushing up against each other, as close as they can be with the baby bump between them. Felicity wishes it would last forever, but alas, still needs to breathe. When she breaks away, she buries her face into the crook of his shoulder and shudders, curling her fingers into his shirt. Their height difference means that Oliver props his chin on the crown of her head, his chest jerking.

“If you don’t turn up for the birth of our child, I’m gonna be so pissed,” she rasps. “You better not miss it.”

“Over my dead body,” he vows, and the awful thing is, that’s actually a possibility. He ducks down to press a kiss to her swollen belly, as if trying to kiss their child.

Echoing shouts from the corridor alert them to the fact that they’re not alone. Lyla, who has been hanging back to let them have their private goodbye, snags Felicity’s sleeve, shooting her a serious look. They need to leave now.

“Go,” Oliver grits out, tears in his eyes as he backs away into the doorframe. “NOW.”

No, Felicity refuses to leave without saying something first. Something she should have said the night of their one night stand, something she’s always been too scared to confess because she’s a fucking coward. “Oliver -” she reaches her hand out for him. “I love -”

Everything fades into white.

The blankness dissolves in the next millisecond and Wollaston Lake with its swaying pine trays, rocky shoreline and cloudless night sky forms before Felicity’s eyes.

She collapses to her knees in the grass and cries.

Months pass. Felicity only grows more depressed as she’s grounded and ordered not to leave the community by Diggle, who she’s appointed team leader during her ‘maternity leave’. They hear absolutely nothing from Oliver. For the first couple of weeks, she thought that it was okay and convinced herself to be patient, as it was only logical that Oliver was probably under watch by the CIA after Chase’s ‘suicide’ and he didn’t want to put them in danger. But after six weeks flew by and there was still no contact from the agent, Felicity started to lose hope. Maybe he reflected on everything that happened in the bunker in those two days and decided he doesn’t actually want anything to do with Felicity and the baby.

Lyla and Diggle visit his apartment but inform Felicity gravely that the layers of dust on the sheet-covered furniture suggest that he hasn’t lived there in a long time. At one point, Felicity grows so desperate when she experiences a stressful day of Braxton Hicks that she attempts to hack into the CIA servers to find any information she can possibly find on Oliver; all she finds is his debrief report after the bunker incident and there’s nothing dated after that.

On the day when her waters break and she goes into labor, Felicity has dejectedly come to accept that Oliver isn’t going to be by her side as their baby is born. It’s a soul-crushing revelation that has Felicity openly crying, but everybody thinks she’s crying because of her contractions, rather than heartbreak. Instead of her baby’s father at her side, she has one of her best friends Roy holding her hand and comforting her through the pain, Caitlin and Alena who have decent amounts of medical training coaxing her labor and checking her dilation. Diggle, Lyla and Dinah are nowhere to be seen; Felicity isn’t sure whether or not they’ve just been told to stay clear or they’re out on another mission she isn’t aware of. The Deviant medical center they’ve set up in the community isn’t as well-stocked as a hospital, but they’ve spent the last half a year preparing for the baby’s birth, so have decent equipment and drugs. Felicity needs a good dose of painkillers so that her powers don’t short out the power, but her contractions are so strong that she still ends up contorting in agony and screaming.

Her early labor ends up being an excruciating eight hours long, but as soon as she enters active labor, everything speeds up very rapidly. 

“Okay, Felicity, you’re ten centimeters,” Caitlin says calmly, around the technopath’s spread legs. “It’s time to push. Next contraction, just go with what your body wants to do and let the pushing happen, alright? Don’t fight it.”

“Oh god,” she whimpers, tears rolling down her face. The lamp beside her bed’s lightbulb bursts as blue electricity surges from her fingers, which are grasping the sheets to the point of almost ripping them. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this.”

“C’mon, girl, yes you can!” Roy encourages her. “Baby Overwatch is nearly here, you just gotta keep going a little longer!”

Her next contraction is so agonising that Felicity blacks out for a few seconds, her entire body threatening to give out as her nervous system is overwhelmed by pain signals. “I want Oliver,” she weeps. “I need Oliver, I want him here, I need him - I can’t do this without him!”

Alena and Roy exchange a concerned glance over Felicity’s head. “The others were meant to be back three hours ago,” Alena whispers fiercely. “ _Where are they_?”

“There must have been complications,” Roy shakes his head, looking helpless.

“Don’t talk about complications,” Felicity cries. She screeches as the next contraction hits.

“You’re almost there, Felicity!” Caitlin shouts. “Almost crowning!”

The door smashes open. Felicity is gritting her teeth with her eyes squeezed shut as her contraction ends, so doesn’t immediately see who it is. When she opens her eyes, though… her vision swims for a moment before focusing, and she’s staring up at Oliver’s flushed, beaming face.

“So, I heard my son or daughter is being born today?” Oliver teases, out of breath.

“Oh my god,” Felicity sobs, yanking him down to kiss him frantically. “You _fucking bastard_ , what time do you call this?!”

Oliver laughs, poking Roy out of his seat so he can sit at Felicity’s side, taking her hand into his. “Told you I wouldn’t miss this over my dead body. And you’re actually looking at a dead man. It took far too long for my liking, but Diggle, Lyla and Dinah’s plan finally worked and we managed to fake my death. The CIA thinks I was killed in an explosion during a Deviant attack. I’m free, Felicity. I’m here and I’m here to sta- _oh shit_ ,” he gasps as Felicity squeezes his hand so tightly his bones creak, when pain slices through her once again and makes her shriek.

“Crowning!” Caitlin yells. “Alena, get over here, I need a second set of hands!”

Three minutes later, they welcome Mia Adaline Smoak into the world.

Felicity tries to insist on Smoak-Queen, but Oliver just shakes his head and states that Mia is a Smoak, through and through.

“She’s a spitfire, just like her mom,” Oliver says in a hushed voice, as he leans over to watch in awe as Felicity feeds the infant for the first time, having been moved to a clean medical bed.

Felicity strokes her thumb over Mia’s satin-soft cheek, smiling down at her milk-drunk daughter. “And resilient like her dad.” She peers up at the ex-agent with a raised eyebrow. “Did you _seriously_ fake your death?”

“Yep,” Oliver preens. “Took an ungodly amount of time to arrange, and I needed Lyla, Dig and Dinah’s help in the end, but the plan worked. Oliver Queen officially died on Tuesday.”

“Three days ago? Why did it take so long for you to get here?”

He snorts in amusement. “Of course you’d complain about _that_ , and not the fact that I essentially ghosted you for four months.”

“Oh no, I’m pissed about that, but I wanna know why I had to go through four fifths of my labour without you if you had three days to get here.”

“Had to make sure some of my assets were properly off the grid, collect new fake IDs and hop from city to city until I reached the Canadian border, where Lyla picked me up,” he shrugs. “I promise, I’ll tell you the whole story later on.”

Mia breaks her latch accidentally and instantly releases an indignant cry. As she does so, darkness swamps the room, despite all the lights being on. Felicity hurries to get her reattached and once the infant is happily sucking again, the shadows recede.

Oliver stares down at their baby with wide eyes. “Well, that answers the question as to whether she has powers,” he comments weakly.

Felicity frowns thoughtfully, shifting Mia in her arms so she doesn’t break her latch again. “That looked like erebokinesis and umbrakinesis. Maybe she’s photokinetic as well.”

“... I have very little knowledge when it comes to Deviant vocabulary.”

“Oh. I mean, she might be able to control, absorb, and create darkness and light,” she explains. “Without the need for electricity or anything. She can create her own shadows and light sources.”

“So she’s like a star and a blackhole all in one?” Oliver asks, intrigued.

“ _Blackstar_.” Felicity cradles her daughter gently, stroking over the fine wisps of blonde hair on her head. “She’s like a black star.”

“What’s that?” He inches closer.

Felicity can tell he’s itching to hold the baby for the first time, so carefully shifts her over into his arms now she’s finished feeding, so he can gently burp her. “It’s the theoretical alternative to a black hole. It’s what is meant to form during the transitional phase between when a star collapses and a singularity forms. Black stars are meant to have infinite energy as they absorb all light.”

“I have no idea what that means but it sounds both terrifying and epic,” Oliver whispers, rocking Mia tenderly and brushing a kiss against her tiny head. “Our little Blackstar. That’ll be your nickname, baby girl.”

Felicity tears up. Again. God, she’s cried so much in the last five months. Seeing Oliver being so wonderful and loving and fatherly with their daughter is tipping her back over the edge, though. “I love you,” she says, because she didn’t get the chance to four months ago and she’s regretted it ever since. “I love you, _so much_.” 

Oliver shoots her a boyish smile. His eyes shine and he looks the happiest that Felicity has ever seen him. “I know. And I love you too.”

“I’m really glad you don’t hate me,” she sniffles. “Because it means we can share this.”

“I never hated _you_ ,” Oliver tells her, his voice sincere and soft. “I hated the fact that I loved you so much and knew it would never be possible for us to be together properly.” He smiles brilliantly. “But, hey, look at us now! Giving the impossible the middle finger! We’re together _and_ we have a beautiful newborn daughter.”

“We should get trapped in bunkers more often,” she says wryly. “We fixed all our problems within 60 hours.”

Oliver chuckles. “I don’t think we should make it a habit. I did point a gun at your head.”

“Yeah, you’re never doing that again.” Felicity playfully taps his arm and zaps him lightly, making him jump. “Capisce?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he promises.

And who would have thought this all started with what Felicity thought was a nightmare?

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much for reading! i would really appreciate it if you left kudos and commented xx
> 
> twitter: @lexiblackbriar  
> tumblr: @alexiablackbriar13


End file.
